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Thursday, January 3, 2013

Generally speaking, linen closets can get out of control, be ignored, forgotten and left out when organizing day rolls around. But my guess is many of you will be running to your closets and cabinets after you see what contributor, Courtney from A Thoughtful Place blog, whipped up in her own home. I am majorly swooning. Here she is now!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you were able to kick of 2013 with
friends and family. I have jumped right into my first organizing project of the
new year. I am determined to live more simply and more beautifully. Even if it
is in tiny ways. We have a set of built in cabinets outside of our children’s
rooms that host towels and sheets. I really wanted to take control of them and
create an upper cabinet that is “guest ready” at all times. Here is what I came
up with.

Everyone one loves the ugly before shots so I didn’t want to let you
down. They were pretty much a mess and had accumulated random things over the
years. If you look closely enough, you’ll even see a Mr. Potato Head. I promise
I didn’t touch a darn thing before snapping these.

Here is a shot of the lower cabinet. I am somewhat of a duvet-hoarder.
It’s true. Long before we had children, we had rooms to spare and used them as
guest rooms. Because of that, I have some duvet covers that I love and really
want to hold onto. So below is just a big jammed up mess of duvets, sheets, and
towels. Oh, and Mr. Potato Head.

Just like any cleaning project I tackle, I begin by clearing everything
out and sorting. I always have a keep, donate, and toss pile. I parted with
some towels we never ever use as well as sheet sets that are older than dirt.
It felt good to let go and move on. I want the upper cabinet to be dedicated to
guests so it now hosts sheets, fresh white towels, and a little basket of
necessities that any guest might find useful.

I folded each set of white sheets and labeled them with their size so
it’s easy to know which bed they go on when guests come to visit. The shabby
chick tags were picked up at Michael’s a couple of years ago.

I also took some time to restyle the top of the shelf as it hadn’t been
touched in years. I kept some special photographs and included a stack of
design magazines that guests could also enjoy. The cute gold coasters on not
exactly necessary but they were given to me by a dear friend and seeing them in
this hallway makes me smile.

The bottom cabinet now hosts the duvets that I want to keep as well as
extra sheets neatly folded. There are also some extra towels.

The little caddy of necessities is just in case guests
forget something. It has happened to me so I know the feeling. It’s always
awkward to ask for things like deodorant or a razor. Here is what I have in
this cable knit basket:

hair spray

deodorant

razor

toothbrush

toothpaste

sunscreen

So now if we have guests pop in or if loved ones come to
stay, I don’t need to scramble to prepare linens. Everything is set aside and
ready to go. What about you? Do you have a plan for guests? Thanks for letting
me share my linen closet. Happy 2013, IHeart readers!

"Do
you believe in love at first sight? I sure do because when I first
stumbled upon I Heart Organizing I immediately fell in love with Jen's
mad organizational skills. I think we all long for a calm,
organized, well styled life. I am the author of A Thoughtful Place
blog where I dish on all things related to decorating, organizing,
entertaining, and of course DIY-ing! To be quite honest, working on
making my house a home is my happy place. It fulfills my need to be
creative and I love sharing ideas {both big and small} with my readers.
Along with my blog, I am a contributing writer to House of Fifty and have recently started my own decorating firm, Casey Grace Design, LLC,
with my talented sister. I call Orange County, California home where
I live with amazing husband and two children. At the end of a busy
day, I love to enjoy an ice cold beer on the front porch with my hubby
while we watch our children ride their bikes or run around. Life is
sweet and I am thrilled to be a part of the IHeart Organizing Team."

58 comments:

My blog comment for the giveaway!My top organizing goal: to not organizing TOO much, or at least not be frantic about getting it all done in a short amount of time. I'm convinced I suffer from some level of OCD when it comes to organizing and it can quite often make me feel overwhelmed and anxious. I am an organized person and will continue to be, but this year I will try not to be a perfect one and embrace the occasional messes in life. :)

I just organized my linen closet over the holiday as well... but it doesn't look nearly as cute as that. I love the idea of the "guest essentials" kit... I think my forgetful mother-in-law will love it too :).

Courtney...you've done it again. I am inspired to check a few things off of my 'to be organized' list. But what I think I'm loving most (besides hide-the-potato-head) are the gorgeouse gold polka dots! If I were you...I would never ever shut those doors! xo

Courtney, I love how you labelled your guest sheet sets...my question is, how do you label the ones you use all the time? I need some ideas for a labelling system that will go through the wash as I have three differnent size beds in my home (plus too many sheet sets!!)

Nice! I'm going to add the idea of a basket of guest goodies in my linen closet. I recently did a major clean out of my own linen closet and sorted all of the different sized sets into their own bags. I had a stack of extra inexpensive beach bags that I had used as a giveaway after my son's beach theme bar mitzvah and found that they were the perfect size for folded sheets. With coupons and a recent white sale from Kohls I just donated all of my very very threadbare bath towels to our local animal shelter and gave myself the gift of a nice set of new towels. They look so nice stacked in that linen closet now. Wish I had some before pictures of just how bad it had been.

My organizing goal for 2013 is to finally tackle our master bedroom closets - two of the ugliest brass and mirror sliding door closets you've ever seen. We plan to knock the whole thing down then fill the space with floor to ceiling Pax units from Ikea complete with all of the organizers. I can't wait to start the project.

My other organizational goal is the same one from every single year...to finally coral all of that paper that litters my office. I try every year but just can't stick to any filing system - boy could I use the help of a personal organizer.

Organization is definitely on my list for 2013 and my two linen closets are on that list. This is definitely inspiration for the one guests will use. Today I used my new Cameo for the first time and made vinyl labels for my trash and recycling cans. They are identical cans and people always ask, is one recycling? So I figured, why not label them!

Amazing Linen closet! My organizing focus this year? Finish the whole house reorganization project I started last year and complete my studio reorganization. I started decluttering and reorg-ing the whole house when I got stuck on the studio's issues. Hopefully, with some major help from the family, I will get the whole house whipped into shape. I may never be photo-worthy but it will be a major improvement.

WOW!! This is just stunning & I am swooning! I love that you have a cupboard just for guests & considered personal items they might need, it's very thoughtful. I would love to have a setup like yours someday. Right now we live in military housing so our linen closet is just a small 5 shelf space that could really use some attention. Thanks for the great ideas!

For the new year i'm tackling my whole house. With 3 kiddos i find that staying on top of organization is a never ending task. I've already done my bathroom and linen closet. Now onto the dreaded master closet! Thanks for the inspiration!

Hmmmm, top organizing goal for 2013...I guess to finish up some of the unfinished organizing projects around the house, bathroom remodel, finish organizing the kids rooms, etc, then I'll have the room and be reinvigorated to start some new ones!

It turned out gorgeous Courtney- your guests will really feel that you took that extra effort to make their stay feel nice. The gold polka dots are awesome! The design mags are such a thoughtful touch and those coasters! :)

We just moved into a new house so I've been trying to start fresh and organized from the beginning, but I'm struggling so bad with linen organization because there's no real good place for them in this old house. Everything is currently stashed away in rubbermaid bins. Hopefully I'll have something functional and pretty like this soon!

Wow. Now I want to have this in my home. All of our linens are mismatching, the elastic of the fitted sheets has given up and everything is just horrible! One of the photos looks as though there are protective storage bags- is that right? Our linen shelf is a set of planks in the top of a cupboard that holds the hot water tank, and the planks move around every time I try to put something in there. The bags might just solve this problem!

Hi Colleen! Those bags are actually zippered plastic pouches that come when you buy new sheets or a drapery panel from Target {as an example}. So anytime I buy something that comes in those I keep them and then use them for storage. It keeps the dust away and is great for things that I will not use often. Hope that helps!

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